An independent report said a principal of a Francophone school in St. Paul, Alberta, was put on leave because he refused to allow students to start a gay-straight alliance.Postmedia Archives

A Francophone Catholic school principal in St. Paul was put on paid leave for nine months for discouraging students from starting a gay-straight alliance, according to documents obtained by Postmedia.

In 2017, students at École du Sommet in St. Paul asked their principal at least twice to form a gay-straight alliance (GSA) after hearing homophobic comments from their classmates, said an independent report prepared in French by Ottawa lawyer Diane Aubé Lazenby and obtained by Postmedia.

Lazenby concluded in her June 1, 2018, report to the Conseil Scolaire Centre-Est school board the principal violated a section of the School Act — a law that compelled principals to grant students’ requests for GSAs and other inclusive extracurricular clubs.

“We’ve requested an AAH (alliance allosexuelle-hétérosexuelle) on many occasions, and we feel that you haven’t fully considered how much of a benefit this could be for our school,” says a letter, written in English, from the students to their principal in 2017, and obtained by Postmedia. “… We would like you to realize that there’s discrimination going on and it’s not right or fair.”

The School Act was amended Dec. 15, 2017, to require principals to “immediately” approve students’ requests to form a GSA, to allow students to choose the group’s name and to prevent school employees from identifying students who belong to the club.

Yvan Beaudoin, who was the principal of École du Sommet until last summer, has been back working at the same school as a teacher since January, school board chairman Réginald Roy said on Wednesday. Beaudoin’s principal contract expired while he was on leave, he said.

Beaudoin did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.

ATA recommends closed-door discipline case

The school board has also expressed concern the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) wants to deal with allegations of professional misconduct against Beaudoin behind closed doors instead of at a public hearing.

A public hearing would convey “the gravity of the misconduct and the seriousness of a member failing to adequately protect the most vulnerable students in our schools,” Roy wrote in a Feb. 3, 2019, letter to ATA executive secretary Dennis Theobald, obtained by Postmedia.

When the principal failed to establish a GSA at the school, it “divided a community and placed students at risk,” Roy’s letter said.

In a Feb. 7 reply, obtained by Postmedia, Theobald said an investigating officer interviewed 12 people, including three students, six teachers, the district’s superintendent and counsellor and a parent. On their face, Beaudoin’s actions appear unprofessional, Theobald wrote.

Beaudoin has not been formally charged with unprofessional conduct, and the allegations have not been tested by an association disciplinary committee.

To avoid asking students to testify at a hearing, Theobald recommended an “invitation” process, in which a teacher would accept responsibility for their conduct, acknowledge it was unprofessional, demonstrate remorse and resolve not to repeat such conduct, the letter said.

In a short Wednesday statement, the association spokesman said there is nothing the association can legally say about the matter.

A community divided

Lazenby was tasked with investigating two allegations — that Beaudoin prevented students from establishing a GSA in the K-12 school, and that some school staff did not intervene to stop harassment against LGBTQ students once they knew about it.

Lazenby found that, on the balance of probabilities, the principal prevented the students from creating a GSA. She did not find enough evidence to support the other allegation.

She found a group of five students explicitly requested a GSA multiple times, and that Beaudoin instead encouraged them to create a global inclusion group that would include other minorities. The students felt confused and embarrassed by the principal’s response, Lazenby wrote.

The principal told them he had to answer to the bishop, and that such a group is not in the Catholic church’s mandate, said a letter by the students, which is included in the report.

Later, when students asked if an outside organization could come to the school to present workshops on acceptance of LGBTQ people, the principal turned them down, saying he didn’t know what was in the presentations, the report said.

The principal then took an information pamphlet from the organization to the local Catholic bishop, but not to school district leaders, the report said.

After a few meetings of the global inclusion group, the students were discouraged and stopped going. The school does not have a GSA today, Roy said.

After the school district put the principal on leave, parents were outraged by the lack of information about Beaudoin’s absence. They held a protest outside the board office and called for board chairman Roy and superintendent Marc Dumont to resign. Dumont is now on leave from the position.

Roy said Wednesday the district was obligated to investigate after receiving the students’ complaint. While the district was legally obligated to keep silent about the investigation, employees and trustees were criticized on social media and concerned enough for their safety that, for a period, they kept the board office door locked, Roy said.

The students who complained told Lazenby their classmates blamed them for the district’s treatment of a well-loved principal.

“It’s because of the gay girls” the principal was put on leave, said one text message included in the report.

It left some of the students regretting that they had reported their concerns, Lazenby said.

“I feel like it wasn’t worth it because instead of fixing the problem about bullying against gays it’s going to cause bullying against us and then we’ll have no power to say, ‘hey maybe you shouldn’t say those heterosexual comments,’ I feel terrible,” one of the students wrote.

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